When Painting Stars
by Koyo
Summary: After years of separation, Sakura and alliances meet once again at the death of a friend, as a new deity advances. Sacrifices are made; friendships are broken- revolving around the star. S&S R&R!


A/N: Well, it obviously seems that my obsession of S+S hasn't completely disappeared... Hehehe. Well, here's a new ficcy with a rather unique plotline, although it will not be clear until a few chapters later. Pure S+S with a lot of adventure on the side. I wrote this entire chapter while listening to Spirited Away's Dragon Boy and Utada Hikaru's Simple and Clean, definitely some of the greatest songs ever made. Those songs were made for writing fics. I recommend listening to them while reading. Haha. Anyway... The first excerpt is just something extra... For clarification, the characters in the first excerpt are mine, and have nothing to do with the rest of the story. Actually, the only reason that they're there is because you people have to understand how they died... Scary, huh? ^.^;;;  
  
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize does not belong to me. The CLAMP geniuses own it all. But the plot... please please please do not steal this plot. I worked my bum off to catch this fic bunny.  
  
Rating: PG-13 for some scary scenes. Nothing that bad, but three year olds may want to refrain from reading.  
  
Story: After years of separation, Sakura and alliances meet once again at the death of a friend, as a new deity advances. Sacrifices are made; friendships are broken- revolving around the star. S+S R+R!  
  
Chapter: Familiar figures reveal their current lives. A new evil is slowly revealed, though not that thoroughly.  
  
*****  
  
Torrents of rain pounded against the deserted streets of Japan. The clouds rode through a sea of black chaos, and, having held their water for only so long, let everything go in one exuberant downpour. Drop after drop descended against the hard earth with unnatural force, cruelly piercing those unfortunate few on the street with incredible vigor. No light, no beam of sunshine could be seen for miles on end- the power lines were down. Occasionally, one could actually use their sense of sight while lightning made a debut to the play. However, the effect was like tempting a blind man to see for 5 seconds, then briskly returning him to shadows.  
  
Kaori Hama watched from her window, while her idiotic brother tried to find just one solitary candle to light the room. He was amusing to watch, considering that she knew the humid weather would suffocate a match too quickly for them to see anything anyway. But of course, she didn't bother to tell him that. With a smile on her face, she slowly turned back to the window. Her eyes gazed at what she could make out of her front lawn. Lightning lit the sky for a brief second, only to slowly fall back into place once more.  
  
She shook her head. The summer storm just didn't seem natural. The clouds were too vast, the rain too severe, the lightning too... lively. It was unnerving... She sighed, and her thoughts went back to minor issues. Wondering these questions, lulled by the pounding rain, she slowly drifted off into slumber.  
  
An hour or so went by, and the storm had yet to disappear. Kaori slept soundly at the windowsill when her brother's impatient whining woke her up.  
  
"Kao! I still can't find the matches!" He stomped around the house, cursing whenever he ran into something in the dark.  
  
She woke up, never the less angry with her brother. Turning away from the window, she yelled at him. "I was sleeping! Find them yourself!"  
  
"I've looked everywhere!"  
  
"Then we probably don't have any more."  
  
"I just bought some last week!"  
  
"Leave me alone!" She rubbed her eyes, hugged her pillow to her chest, and stretched. Sitting at a windowsill for two hours made her back sore. She winced as she sat up.  
  
Just then, another huge bout of lightning struck. Kaori quickly glanced to the window again, the flicker of a frown on her features. She thought she glimpsed something in her peripheral vision- off to the side, something flickering. Something. . . red?  
  
Unable to see, she remained fixated to the window. The blinding glow struck again.  
  
"Strange." she whispered. A small frown crossed over her mouth. It was a girl. A young girl- a teenager, if she was seeing correctly. Long hair down to her waist, and wearing a. . . Kaori's eyes opened wide. "A dress! In this weather?! She'll be torn to ruins!"  
  
The street was once again was swallowed up by shadow. She held her fingers to the glass as she waited for the next breathe of light.  
  
"Come on. Hurry. . . There!" she said. Light accumulated in the dark, and Kaori put her hand down against her side.  
  
The girl was gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Kaori felt a tingling feeling in her chest, but disregarded it as a case of shock.  
  
"Kao! I seriously need to find those matches!"  
  
"... W-what?"  
  
"Help me find the matches!"  
  
Kaori didn't hear him. She continued to stare at the window, and her vision became dark--- no. But blurry, obscure- the trees were a mass of green and brown, the buildings having no definite shape. Was it just her, or was the sky getting darker? She squinted into the crackling sky. She heard lightning, and was baffled by the shadow that surrounded the window. Lightning? No. That's not right. I would have seen another flash. She froze. An unmistakable feeling of numbing realization engulfed her. As a last desperate attempt, she waved her hand in front of her face. She heard another bout of lightning. I can't see.  
  
Her breath became sharper, quicker, to the point where she was hyperventilating, although unaware of the fact. She wanted to scream, but her voice was coagulated in her throat. She was still staring at the window, as if waiting for something to happen, something to appear. One watching her eyes would notice something baffling. It was as if a cloud from overhead emerged in her eyes. The blue color was violently pushed to the outside of the irises rim- the crystalline blue was then brutally suffocated as a gray, almost red tone possessed her eyes. Though once jovial, all that remained was an inhuman empty shell.  
  
Fear gripped her with an icy claw, and she could feel the knife's cold stab of fear slowly entering her heart. Abruptly she felt a caustic pain the back of her head, as if it was being broken in two. Her head was hurting.  
  
So badly.  
  
Just so terribly...  
  
She was unaware that her head met the floor with a sickening thud, with only the hard wood to support it. She wanted to scream, but the voice was gone. The will was gone. She held her head in her outstretched arms, and her knees were pushed to her chest in pain. She constricted with every movement, pain surrounding every limb. In her torment, she knew that it was all originating from her head. She knew that something was happening, though from what or why she did not know. She just wanted it to stop. Just let it stop. Let it go away. Darkness surrounded her, smothering her, until her wish came true. It all turned black.  
  
"Kaori?" her brother called. He heard her fall to the floor, oblivious of her anguish. He turned the corner into the room, and the sight before him shook his bones. A figure born of nightmares came toward him, and he stared, wide-eyed, paralyzed with fear.  
  
He moved backward, and over the figure's shoulder, saw his unconscious sister on the ground, a deep puddle of blood surrounding her head. Lightning surrounded her figure in the darkness, revealing sharp cuts all over her face, adding to the crimson mess on the wooden floor. He tripped backwards over the box of matches on the ground, and panicked as he backed up, backed up, faster, and faster. The figure came towards him, an outstretched hand appearing from within the black folds of its cloak.  
  
"The Star." it whispered.  
  
He didn't have any time to wonder what the Star was. He didn't even hear the sentence before a hand reached towards his face. He screamed once- only once- before he was struck down dead.  
  
The scream was drowned out by thrashing thunder and pummeling rain. Nobody saw the dark formation that floated across the lawn, nor did they see as it broke up into five different pieces, each moving in a different direction. Nobody noticed that the pieces made unusual yellow glowing marks on the ground, nor that they formed a shape when looked at from above.  
  
A Star.  
  
...And the rest of Japan slept, Unaware of anything except the leisurely sounds of their own breathing.  
  
But those of the magic kind abruptly shivered in their sleep for a reason they could not explain, nor control.  
  
Something bad had started.  
  
Something terrible.  
  
*****  
  
Sun drifted harmoniously through the lucid windows. The gentle breeze caressed the flowers and leaves on the ground; birds sang freely, as if a contest was proposed between them all. Tranquility seemed to be most abundant this day. The large brick school sat motionlessly on the sidewalk, as if it was part of nature itself. Most of its students were already inside. The peace was suddenly shattered as a sprinting shadow appeared on the sun-bathed grass. The hall was, at that moment, filled with the resounding clangs of sneakers on stone. The noise stopped just as soon as it came, and the hall was silent once more.  
  
"Ohayo." The girl quickly walked into class, cautiously closing the door so she wouldn't make a sound. She knew she succeeded when the teacher didn't look up from the magazine she was reading.  
  
"Ohayo Sakura-chan." Tomoyo cheerfully greeted from her seat. Sakura walked over to her smiling, a look of pure joy on her features. She took the back seat next to her friend. "Are you ready for the math test today?" Tomoyo asked her.  
  
"Hm?" she muttered, rummaging for something in her bag.  
  
"The math exam. Are you ready?"  
  
"I hope so." She pulled out a textbook from her bag. "I've been studying for it all week." Sakura flipped through the large red book, in which Tomoyo noticed numerous notes and study sheets stuck between the pages.  
  
"Hoe..." She murmured. "There's so much to study!"  
  
Tomoyo laughed. "If you've studied as much as you said you have, and I think you did..." she said, pointing to the paper ridden with equations that floated from the book to the ground. "...Then you will do fine."  
  
"I hope you're right." Sakura said.  
  
"Of course I'm right." Tomoyo answered, leaning over to pick up the paper. "Hey. What's this?"  
  
Sakura turned to what her friend was looking at: her math studies. "What about it?"  
  
Tomoyo turned to her friend, face lit up with glee. She pointed to the parchment, in which the half of the page was comprised in a drawn picture of a wolf. It wasn't just a sketch, either. Obvious time and effort was shown in every line, every detail, from the round, proud eyes to the fur on its back. It was even colored! Tomoyo realized with delight. The eyes were a magnificent shade of golden-brown; the proud stance reflected the shade of the moon at its back. The fur was moving every which way that the wind directed it, and was a brilliant dark chocolate pastel. -A beautiful picture that was very nicely done- Tomoyo would later say.  
  
"Hoeee!" Sakura snatched the paper from Tomoyo's grip and instantaneously turned an undeniably vivid shade of crimson. She quickly and carefully folded and put the paper in her backpack. As she turned around, she confronted her friend's face that was suppressed with mirth.  
  
"You received another letter from Li-kun, I suppose?" she drawled, inwardly laughing at Sakura's discomfort. "Nothing else would make you so happy. I should have guessed." Tomoyo's beaming was replaced by an inquisitive look in her eyes. "What did he say, Sakura?" she asked her.  
  
It the few moments when her friend found the picture till now, Sakura's face had turned a bright crimson. It took a while for her to answer- or even figure out she had been asked a question. After a few seconds though, she seemed to be roughly shocked back into reality. "Hm? O-Oh. I got his letter yesterday night. Touya 'forgot' to give it to me." She said, squishing her shoe on the floor, wishing it was her brother's foot. "I guess I drew the picture after reading it..."  
  
Tomoyo smiled again, realizing how special a moment yesterday must have been. "You didn't answer my question. What did the letter say, Sakura?"  
  
Sakura, on hearing the question, turned even a deeper shade of red. She seemed to go down memory lane once more before answering. "He-"  
  
To Tomoyo's dismay, the bell rang at that exact moment.  
  
"Alright class. The big exam's today! Everyone take out a sheet of paper, and we'll begin."  
  
Tomoyo sighed, knowing that the conversation would have to wait until after class.  
  
Sakura, on the other hand, was never so happy to be taking a math exam before.  
  
*****  
  
A young man sat intolerantly on the bench, his hands comfortably supporting the back of his head. His eyes roamed over the grass and trees being tossed about in the wind, and he frowned as he realized that his soccer team was losing- moving against the air.  
  
'If it weren't for the assistant coach, I could have been in this game from the second quarter.' He thought.  
  
He was momentarily distracted as the stadium erupted equally into groans and cheers- the opposing team scored again.  
  
'But then again, if it weren't for mother, I wouldn't have been late to the game at all.'  
  
He looked over his shoulder and wasn't surprised to see the co-coach leaning against the benches. His eyes were closed almost painfully, and he was slowly hitting his head against the bleachers. Who could blame him? The team was losing sickeningly, 1 to 8. With only another quarter left in the game, there wasn't much of a possibility that anything could be done at all.  
  
In a last sad attempt, called for a time out. The team's face showed worry, doubt, and discouragement.  
  
"We lost. We're done for."  
  
"Lin-san, that isn't a very good attitude. I expect every one of you to put in a lot more effort! With a good conscience we can do anything!"  
  
Every individual was shocked by his attempt at a pep talk. They were in high school, not elementary. What was he going to do next? Sing a song about imagination?  
  
Lin shook his head and looked back towards the bench and saw Syaoran's gaze, obviously directed at the assistant coach.  
  
"Why can't we put Syaoran in the game?"  
  
"No one on my team can come late to the game and expect to play. He should learn some responsibility."  
  
Lin's eyes widened, and he looked around at the exasperated bystanders milling around the stands. "Look at the scoreboard. Whether or not he's in the game couldn't matter now. We're too far behind."  
  
"All the more reason to keep him on the bench."  
  
"He's the star of the team! We wouldn't have gotten anywhere this season without him. Why don't you just put him in the game?!"  
  
The coach's face turned red. "Fine. Li-san will go in the game in your place, Lin."  
  
Whatever Lin was expecting, it wasn't that. He sputtered and said a few curses before finally giving in, shuffling his feet and bending the grass. He moved to the bench, and faint whispers were heard as Syaoran slowly made his way to the front.  
  
"Li-san, you'll be taking Lin's place at the right offense."  
  
The change in team format didn't stop Syaoran from glaring icy daggers at the coach.  
  
As the referee's whistle sounded through the stadium, the assistant coach once again returned to hitting his head on the bleachers.  
  
He groaned again in mid-hit as the stadium erupted into its winning-losing phase. Another goal? He thought. Star player. Yeah right. He couldn't even stop them from making another g-  
  
His eyes widened. Slowly, carefully, he looked up. The people around him were cheering. Not the other side. He didn't dare smile yet, just in case someone was playing a cruel joke to torture him. He looked towards the crowd opposite him. They were groaning. He looked towards the field. Their team had smiles. The visiting team was walking towards their positions dejectedly.  
  
He stood up, and immediately noticed the crowd on the field. And who would stand in the middle but Li Syaoran? His mouth opened in a small o.  
  
"Did you see that goal?" A woman asked, clapping her hands raw.  
  
"Amazing!" another screamed, drawing attention to herself.  
  
"What's wrong with the coach?" she sputtered. "We'd be ahead by 20 points if he would have put Li in sooner!"  
  
The assistant coach, overhearing the conversation, felt his face go red; and he pulled his red hat over his face, hiding his eyes. He stepped back to watch the game, which looked to be promising, considering that Li was well rested compared to all the other players. As the referee blew the whistle to signal another term in the game, people were cheering and shouting like he had never heard before.  
  
~  
  
Fifteen minutes later, the score was tied, 8 to 8. Extraordinary plays were done, mostly from the encouragement Syaoran added to the field. With 5 minutes left in the game, stakes were put up that neither team could afford to lose.  
  
The red team crouched low, preparing to run, and the green countered by copying the same motion. They stood like that- each daring each other to move- to mess up. The red team knew now that their opponent's double-edged sword had appeared in the battle fray. And unless they did something, they were going to lose. Badly. The last thing their team needed was to be beaten by a... kid. This astounding player was at least two years younger than anyone on their team.  
  
Syaoran stood at the right side, watching his teammate in the center, waiting for his chance to strike. The opposing team passed the ball to the left side, and his deep amber eyes flashed as his teammate did a dangerous slide at the mud. Nevertheless, the ball was taken.  
  
Syaoran could feel the wind at his back as he made his way up to the front. He watched from his peripheral vision as three other opposing players came up behind him. He quickly sidestepped to the right, gracefully, lightly, as one of them tried to sweep his feet from under him.  
  
"Sorry. My mistake there," he looked away, but not before a huge smirk made its way to his face.  
  
Syaoran returned the same gesture. "It's ok." And he looked away as he smiled disconcertingly. "I'm sure you'll have plenty more mistakes in the future."  
  
The boy's face whipped around, indignation apparent in his eyes, making him look like a rotten tomato. "I'll have you know-"  
  
A rising wind with a faint evanescent quality loomed around him. The boy blinked. He looked around, confused, startled. He glanced up, and noticed Syaoran streaming down the sideline, as he passed yet another defender. The boy squinted. Syaoran was sprinting so fast that his legs were but a blur on the green grass. He blinked again.  
  
"Damn..." he whispered breathlessly, eyes lost in shock and admiration. "He's faster then the eye can see."  
  
~  
  
Syaoran shot through the crowds, a blazing fire through a dry forest. He breathed the cool, refreshing blue air as he ran, a skill that came as easily to him as did the winding strokes of a painter's brush. He noticed two defenders lunging at him, and made a quick pass to his left.  
  
The ball blew back all grass in its path, and it went high in the air before Syaoran's teammate intercepted it and made his way to the front. He was closed in from all sides before he made another pass to Syaoran, who stopped to get control of the ball before sprinting away at full speed.  
  
He closed in on the goal, moving in large arcs to avoid the lunging defenders. A player grabbed at his sleeve, and Syaoran easily twisted out of the way of his grasp while running. But the act left him off guard for another player heading toward him straight on.  
  
Syaoran feinted to his right, then swerved as suddenly as an eagle does its prey, with a sudden and breathtaking swish that left a spiraling, snaking zephyr in its wake. The defender, confused, nearly fell over. Syaoran slammed his shoulder into the boy, before once again running at full speed towards the goal. He swerved in and out of the field, running as if in a dance, with unrelinquishing energy and ample skill that only the best athletes could ever hope to have.  
  
A momentary ring surrounded the field, and his ears rang, knowing that the buzzer signaled the last ten seconds of the game. Spotting one last defender, he kicked the ball up straight in the air, and ran across the field, watching as the ball fell to the ground.  
  
As it fell to the ground, he took careful aim and headed it straight into the goal- right before the goalie stopped by his side.  
  
The ending buzzer rang.  
  
Though it was unheard through the screaming sideliners.  
  
~  
  
Syaoran was walking home with a chattering Meilin at his side after the game.  
  
"You were so awesome! That move you did to that tall guy was great- he fell down afterwards, but he looked so dazed when he saw you running away---"  
  
Syaoran had only the shimmer of a smile on his face as he looked up into the blazing sun against the falling leaves. For him, hearing that assistant coach apologize after the game was enough.  
  
"---You should have seen his face when---"  
  
He felt the gentle breeze and spaced out, no longer bothering to hear what his cousin had to say. It was a beautiful crisp autumn afternoon. The gentle brown and golden leaves were splayed and spattered on the ground, and the trees seemed to lose even more every minute, making the wind full of them. Children played in the leaves, and in their tranquility, seemed to lose a sense of time altogether.  
  
"---Or when that guy tried to trip---"  
  
The breeze seemed to be full of golden-flecked specks, making the air magical. The sun was in back of it all, adding to the magnificence of the picturesque setting. Yes, it was a perfect autumn day.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Syaoran glimpsed someone with her back to him- with the same short auburn colored hair as the leaves surrounding her. His gaze quickly shifted to her, and Syaoran watched as the girl slowly turned around. It seemed to take a lifetime; her hair fleetingly wavering in the wind, the leaves framing her body. But when her face was finally shown... it wasn't her.  
  
"Or when---"  
  
"Hey, Meilin?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You go on ahead, ok?"  
  
"Why?!"  
  
"I just want to stay out here a little longer."  
  
She sighed and looked at him pointedly. "You better make it back in time for your studies! If your sisters get mad at me again, they won't be the only ones upset." She glared at him.  
  
He smiled. "I'll be back in time."  
  
She shrugged. "Ok. Suit yourself."  
  
He made sure she actually went back before taking a leap into the tree next to him. He stood on one of the branches, the wind teasing his hair into his face and the leaves around him perfectly matching his amber eyes.  
  
He watched as the young girl took care of the child, with a growing sense of disappointment in his eyes. He slowly placed his hands in his pockets as he turned away, lost in another place, another time.  
  
He didn't know why he still missed her. Five years was a long time. He didn't know why he even bothered to look at the girl in the first place.  
  
Because it was never her.  
  
*****  
  
"Eriol-sama?" Suppi-chan slowly flew down the stairs down to the basement, a doubtful, worried expression blatant on his small face.  
  
"Eriol-sama? What are you doing?" he flew to the bottom, watching the spiders on the stairs flee for cover. He came to stop where Eriol sat at his desk, hurriedly scribbling notes and messages to himself. Suppi-chan's eyes widened as he realized that the stacks full of papers on the desk were also notes, taken from the dozens of hundreds of dust-enveloped books surrounding him.  
  
Eriol took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It was no wonder. The only source of light by which he was writing was a candle, which was now in a pool of wax in its glass container.  
  
Suppi tentatively poked Eriol's arm, and frowned when nothing happened. He poked him again, a little harder.  
  
"I'm fine." Eriol stated, though rather apprehensively. "Just doing research."  
  
"On what?" he asked, clearly mystified. He moved to Eriol's shoulder, where he sat down.  
  
Eriol frowned. He raised an eyebrow before answering. "I'm not exactly sure." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, his blue eyes shined.  
  
"Something's going to happen."  
  
Spinel froze. He had only heard those words out of Eriol's mouth once before- and that time, disaster had struck like never before. He knew that Eriol's power of the foreseen was incredibly accurate, and whatever he said would undoubtedly happen.  
  
"About what?"  
  
This time, his eyes didn't just shine. A gloss of royal blue illuminated his eyes when he finally answered.  
  
"Sakura." He whispered, his voice but a tiny trace in the air.  
  
Suppi shivered.  
  
"But the being is not of the new. I know I've sensed this before... I just can't remember where... or how."  
  
"Clow?" Suppi suggested.  
  
"Maybe." He got up from his chair, pushing it back to the desk lightly. He closed the dust covered tome on the table and blew out the candle with a flash of smoke. The room was pitch black. Spinel couldn't see anything.  
  
"We'll just have to wait and see."  
  
*****  
  
A/N: Ok, ok. So most of this chapter was S+S fluff. I have no idea how that worked out. x_x Ack. Next chapter will have less fluff, more dark stuff. I promise. Please forgive my OOC-ness... I can't help it! Oh. Just to make sure that you don't get confused... Syaoran went back to China, but never told Sakura anything. Sakura let Syaoran go back to China, but never told him anything. Tomoyo is still Saku-chan's best friend, Eriol is still in England, Meilin is still in China with Syaoran. Any characters unrecognizable will not have major roles in the story.  
  
See that little blue button down there marked 'Review'? That little blue button is your friend. R+R PLEASE!!! 


End file.
